Medical robotic systems such as teleoperative systems used in performing minimally invasive surgical procedures offer many benefits over traditional open surgery techniques, including less pain, shorter hospital stays, quicker return to normal activities, minimal scarring, reduced recovery time, and less injury to tissue. Consequently, demand for such medical robotic systems is strong and growing.
Examples of medical robotic systems include the da Vinci® Surgical System and the da Vinci® S™ Surgical System from Intuitive Surgical, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif. Each of these systems includes a surgeon's console, a patient-side cart, a high performance three-dimensional (“3-D”) vision system, and Intuitive Surgical's proprietary EndoWrist® articulating instruments, which are modeled after the human wrist. When added to the motions of manipulators holding the surgical instruments, these articulating instruments allow at least six degrees of freedom of motion to their end effectors, which is comparable to or even greater than the natural motions of open surgery.
During the performance of a medical procedure, it may be useful to brace the surgical instruments used in performing the medical procedure and/or an image capturing device used for viewing the medical procedure so as to be restricted or otherwise constrained in their movement relative to an anatomic structure at a surgical site. Without such bracing, precise positioning of the end effectors of the surgical tools relative to the anatomical structure may be difficult to control. For example, external forces may be exerted against the end effectors causing them to move. Also, the target tissue being subjected to a medical procedure may move due to its natural movement, or movement of adjacent organs, or the flow of blood through adjacent veins or arteries.
When performing certain medical procedures, it is advantageous to insert the surgical instruments and the image capturing device as a bundled unit through a single port, such as a natural body orifice or a minimally invasive incision, in the patient. In such a bundled unit, however, mechanical coupling between the bundled components may cause undesirable movement of one component as a result of an external force being exerted against another. Thus, bracing of the entire bundled unit may be advantageous for better relative position control of its individual surgical instruments.